Page 80 of Hard to Score

“The press is already having a goddamn field day with it and the game isn’t even three hours over.”

Yes. It will kill him. I’m sorry to tell you right before your game, but I thought you’d want to know.

“Do you think I threw the game?” I ask the man who’s been my biggest cheerleader since signing with the NFL. “I’ve played my ass off and my heart out for this team. Eighteen games to be exact. One full season and two more into my sophomore season with the NFL. How dare you stand there and even ask me that goddamn question.”

“And yet I haven’t heard a simple yes or no from you.”

I stare at him, fury raging and pulse pounding. He is the one person I thought had my back. The one fucking person who would believe me, and yet he’s asking questions. He’s letting the doubt seep in.

After all the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve dedicated to this team in the short time I’ve been here, he’s still doubting me?

One fucking bad game, and he’s already turned his back? What the actual fuck?

My mom’s voice is in my head. Again.

Just like it was during the game.

It’s on goddamn repeat.

Over and over and over.

Every sentence of the conversation was like the cadence I’d give before a snap.

Every word was motivation.

I used the anger at first. The rage and the fury over her call to make me play like a wild man. To channel it through aggression.

But somewhere around the start of the fourth quarter, it was like the life had been sucked out of me.

Like I had lost everything.

My will.

My focus.

My ability.

“Your lack of explanation is concerning, Drew. What in the Sam Hill happened out there?”

I grit my teeth and stare at him.

I’ve overcome deficits, I’ve scrambled out of pockets, I’ve avoided blitzes . . . but this is one thing I can’t run from. This is one thing a fucking Hail Mary can’t fix.

My dad is going to die.

I stare at Roger and my stomach churns. The need to explain, to want to explain, is there and yet isn’t he proving my mom right? One bad game and the press is already coming after me. Already assuming the worst.

Just. Like. Him.

I shove away the feeling of betrayal. The hurt.

Do not tell anyone, Drew. If the press finds out they’ll say it’s karma.

They’ll say it’s justified. They’ll vilify him all over again.

Mom, come on. Surely they won’t say that. Surely they’ll feel empathy for such a devastating diagnos—

No, Drew. Do not tell the press. You have no idea the things they will say. The mud they will drag our family through. We protected you from it as much as possible back then, but now . . . now that you’re in the league that threw him to the wolves, I can’t begin to imagine the unwanted attention it will bring to your career. Do not tell anyone.